Premonitions of New Orleans Devastation by a Rock Icon

BY RUSS WELLEN09.22.2005 14:39 | DISPATCHES

On September 7 in a TimesOnline article called "New Orleans -- the ideal place to get shot," the Kinks' Ray Davies told of his visit to New Orleans last year to raise funds for a local school's Mardi Gras instruments and uniforms. However, he was shot during a mugging.

In the emergency room of New Orleans's famed Charity hospital, a doctor assured him that, "New Orleans really is the best place to get shot." In other words, due to the violence, they had a lot of practice in treating gunshot wounds. Davies, however, couldn't help noticing the substandard conditions of the hospital.

That wasn't all he noticed. Before he was laid low, Davies toured the city.

"The levees," he wrote, "seemed insufficient for the amount of water surrounding the city. The roads were uneven and the tap water pressure in most houses was weak. The whole system appeared improvised. . . . deep down I felt the whole infrastructure was very fragile. . . . something disastrous was in the cards."